About this blog

I have been hanging around in this industry since the very early days. I’ve seen a lot, and even learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. I’ve looked around and seen a few industry blogs, but what I’ve read tends to be product-centric and quite self-serving. People can’t seem to resist the temptation to shamelessly self-promote.

Given I spent 20 years writing and editing in daily newspapers before leaving and getting into this weird space, I thought I could revive my somewhat dormant skills and start a blog looking at the industry from a macro level. What’s being done out there. What works. What seems doomed from the get-go.

After a long career in daily newspapers, fed up with head office versus regional bullshit, I went over the wall in 1999 and joined Canada’s Elevator News Network, what was at that time among the most ambitious and successful digital signage networks in the world. I got the company going in Western Canada and then moved east to take ENN through its most aggressive expansion. We added 600 screens in a year, a huge task and a very big capex.

I left after ENN was shotgun-merged with Captivate Network of Boston, having been walked off the plank along with the rest of the Canadian management team. I think our US colleagues picked up a few things from us, and Captivate has developed into one of the biggest and most successful players in this space.

I had a brief sojourn with a digital signage start-up, and then started work on what became Concourse Media, an ad-based network with screens positioned through the busiest commuter walkways underground Toronto’s business district.

That’s still operating, but a couple of lean years, and kids in high school, convinced me to hand over the keys and get a steady paycheque. In hindsight, we were a couple of years early on the scene.

These days I am developing the business in Canada for a best in class digital media networks company called Broadsign International.

They operate in a very crowded field, but having been an end user and seen a LOT of technology offers, it did not take me long to decide when they came came calling, looking for help.

I spend a lot of time in Montreal, and in various airports, but my home and home base is in Burlington, Ontario, aka outer, outer Toronto, Canada.

I do this for fun, and despite the appearance of seemingly dozens of other blogs, because it is needed. I try to stay unbiased, and if I take a shot at a competitor, it is not to gain some advantage. It’s because a competitor is being ridiculous in a press release, and needs a little written whack upside the head. If the Emperor shows up with no clothes, I’m taking pictures and posting ’em.